I am looking to start up a 2300 Game based around exploration, where characters are going to be scouts. I was wondering what books people use to chart new systems and planets. While I have and can use the old DGP stuff I was hoping to use something newer from Mongoose, so any suggestions?

2300 uses the world system generator in the Traveller core book. I'm assuming you have the 2300 core book but Tools for Frontier Living is a good source to understand what worlds are good for colonies and outposts and adds new content to the world's characteristics. You also can 'grow' colonies over time.

BIG difference between the two games is FTL travel, Jump vs. Stutterwarp. You're not limited to discrete distances and limited fuel in 2300 which allows travel at about 7 PCs max before needing to dump energy at a gravity well. 2300 uses a 3D coordinate system which isn't that hard to do but harder to manage than a hex map system.

BIG difference between the two games is FTL travel, Jump vs. Stutterwarp. You're not limited to discrete distances and limited fuel in 2300 which allows travel at about 7 PCs max before needing to dump energy at a gravity well. 2300 uses a 3D coordinate system which isn't that hard to do but harder to manage than a hex map system.

iirc 7.7 light years, not parsecs.

Abandoning the unrealistic hex-grid maps of Traveller doesn't mean you can't have reasonably easy to read graphical representation of 2300 star maps. Use a system like modern day subway maps with a web-like emphasis on which stars are accessible from which other stars, instead of rigorously trying to translate 3D space into 2D representation. The use of color can make the subway maps a lot easier to read than hex sheet maps, even if it does lack the old school quaintness of seeing a "star map."

Realistically, subways are very two dimensional. Not too many stations above and below. What often helps when representing a 3D map on 2D is marking the actual distance on a route. A half inch line marked 10 ly. and another line two inches marked 3 lys give better perspective of up and down.